Scroll down towards the bottom to see this year in passing. Things changed a lot this year. This Newsletter will grow as things change. Click Here to Read the 2002 Newsletter. Click Here to Read the 2001 Newsletter. Click Here to Read the 2000 Newsletter. Click Here to Read the 1999 Newsletter. The 2003 crop update as of November 17, 2003. We're Still Shipping Garlic - There's Plenty of Time To Plant. Added November 17, 2003 - We still have a dozen or so different kinds of excellent garlic and can fill lots of orders for assorted sampler packs. There's still time to get in a good crop. We have plenty of Music and Romanian Red, both porcelains, one milder and one stronger, and some Cal Early and Lorz Italian, both artichokes - one milder and one stronger, and lesser amounts of a dozen or so other varieties as well. Order now while there's still time to plant and get a good crop. It has been a busy fall season, especially since Organic Gardening magazine ran an article about garlic mentioning us and recommending us as a mail order source of garlic. It always feels good when some national publication recognizes your work and mentions you favorably in an article. There was another Garlic is Life! Symposium in Tulsa and it was super. The scientific focus this year was on identifying the basic groups of garlic and the origin places of those particular groups of garlic. The latest findings indicate seven groups or clusters of garlic types, with the Creoles being yet undefined. An earlier study had shown 17 isozyme groups falling into five major categories. More recent studies using two different DNA techniques revealed seven basic groups or clusters of garlic varietal types, with the jury still out on Creoles at this time (Are they an eighth cluster that is unusually widely scattered?). Maybe we'll find out more at the next symposium. This new information will require some changes to the Overview page of the website and the Varieties pages as well. To read more about this years symposium, click here: The symposium has been a gold mine to me in terms of being able to meet knowledgeable, multi-degreed people from whom I have learned much about all aspects of garlic. It is from these well-informed experts from afar that I get the information for the website. The material in my website comes from these experts' lectures and also from the conversations we have at lunch or dinner afterward. The body of knowledge about garlic is growing exponientially, just like the interest in it and there's a lot of misinformation circulating about it, too. I try to clear up some of the confusion by talking with experts and incorporating their comments into the website - that keeps it current. We will be doing a major upgrade to the website sometime during the winter and spring in order to freshen and organize it. Added September 12, 2003 - We are now starting to ship garlic and early orders are now being sent. We're always grateful for those early orders and reward their faith in us with the best of the new crop garlic. Place your orders now while we still have an abundant supply of premium quality garlics. Some growers didn't fare well this year while others prospered - welcome to the world of farming. Alas, we will have no Gregory's China Rose this year, but we have a new one called Shantung that has its same growing characteristics, but a different taste. We also will be without Mother of Pearl (Silverskin) and a couple of others. We are already out of all Creole varieties. Early orders claimed most of the available supply (See how important early ordering can be?). The article in the Sept/Oct edition of Organic Gardening magazine recommending Creoles for warm winter regions of the country has caused an immediate increase in demand for these rare treasures. Creoles are the hardest to find of all garlics these days, and the increase in demand comes at the worst time. The good news is that we expect to have a much greater supply of them next year and the year after. We have a few garlics that are new to us, including Achatami, Kettle River Giants (back after a couple of years), Russian Giant and Shantung Purple (Turban Artichoke variety) and will be telling you more about these and the other new ones over the coming weeks. We owe thanks again this year to our group of Great Garlic Growers for allowing us to purchase the cream of their crops at a premium price so that we will be selling only the best that we can find. Our growers take good care of us. For those who haven't been following along with us, Our growers are remotely located growers who don't have much of a local market, but who can grow some really great garlic. By patronizing these small scale growers we are promoting e-commerce in America. With the help of our growers, we can deliver these gourmet varieties to the people who come to our website looking for them. Everybody wins. Continue reading below to see the year unfold from spring onward. NEW! - Added May 1, 2003 - Check out our new line of pickled/marinated garlic. - In Hosgood's, we have finally found a broad line of pickled garlic products that we just love and have decided to sell them on our website and make these delightful treats available to our customers. They are in stock and ready for immediate shipment. Click here to find out more about our new pickled garlic or to order March 25, 2003 It's spring again and the wildflowers are everywhere on the ranch in dense clumps and in dazzling arrays of colors. Even Mother Nature celebrates my annual spring haircut. Because I work outside, I let my hair and beard grow long for warmth during the fall and winter and get sheared short in the spring since that's cooler. I play my Choctaw cedar flute at Lake Brownwood as a prelude to the Easter sunrise service every year and the mountain-man look kinda adds to the aura of the flute music drifting through the woods in the gray predawn. The incredibly rich and soothing flute music makes the long wait of the early arrivals go easier and I have received many compliments. This year, I also played the Choctaw cedar flute at the Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox celebrations at the petroglyphs site at Paint Rock, Texas. Paint Rock is a place which many native peoples over the centuries have treated as a holy place and painted many symbols on the cliff walls above the banks of the Concho River. Observations have confirmed some of these rock paintings to accurately predict the solstices and equinoxes and some that appear to be astronomical/astrological sky charts as well. Chiefs, Shamans and spiritual practicioners of several tribes still come here to this special place to perform their rituals, usually alone because it's not done for show, though sometimes one will chant his chant and make his offerings oblivious to the presence of others. Over the centuries, Paint Rock has been home to many different cultures and so no restrictions are placed on native religious ceremonies nor is any form of disrespect permitted. Fred and Kay Campbell, the genial owners of the ranch, 16 miles south of Ballanger, Texas where the pictographs are located are the latest of a series of owners who have done everything they could to preserve and protect this place and these rock paintings. They lead guided tours at $5 for adults and $3 for children. Call them at 1-(325) 732-4376 and make a reservation for a tour and plan to spend some quality time in a special peaceful place on the banks of the cool Concho river. You'll learn some things about the Indians who lived here long ago that will surprise you. Feel free to bring a picnic basket and leave nothing but footprints in the dust and take nothing but memories and photographs. You'll come away with a peaceful feeling that might even change your life. I hope this does not sound like a commercial; it's not. Paint Rock is not for entertainment like a powwow, but is a special place where one can commune with nature and meditate in a place that lets you feel an uncommonly strong connectedness with Mother Earth and all her other children. It feels as if some part of the spirits of those who were here before are still here. It is an invitation to open the eyes and ears of your soul to hear the stories of those whose innumerable campfires dot the night sky and whose names can never be said again. One comes away with a feeling of spiritual fulfillment and personal contentment. There are some places that just seem to have some kind of spiritual electromagnetic attraction. This place is one and so is "the Garden of the Gods" rock formations in Colorado. Oh, Yeah, the Garlic - I almost forgot. What little we planted is doing very well. We only planted a few thousand plants this year, all of them Creoles and other hard to get varieties that grow well in the south and other warm winter areas. Everything else we sell this year will come from more northerly growers who send us their best every year. It's the only way we can get the best rocamboles, purple stripes and porcelain garlics for our customers. We hope to have enough Burgundy, Ajo Rojo and Creole Red (and maybe also some Spanish Morado and Cuban Purple) to send out some in assorted sampler packs, but will not have enough to sell by the pounds. See the list below for other varieties we expect to have this year Those who have been reading the newsletters for a few years will remember that I am now the primary working male on my wife's family's cattle ranch and that my daily routine usually includes fixing fences or working with cattle. This keeps me fairly busy but doesn't really limit the amount of time I can devote to the website and garlic. I don't ride anymore since the old horse died and I've not yet found a new one that won't hurt my back to ride, so we hire some local cowboys to do a lot of the work, freeing me up to focus on the garlic as much as possible. I don't especially miss being saddle sore, anyway. Riding two days in a row was always rough and I lived in fear of having to ride three days in a row. Daylight Savings Time doesn't mean much out here - I get up before the sun and work until last light, anyway. It's really hot out for April; we're in the mid-90's already. Garlic doesn't like that. I hope that's not any kind of indicator for summer. What irony that the deity gives us the longest days only when the sun is at its hottest as if daring us to use the time working outside. When I was young and strong and wanted to rule the world, I could have easily worked out in it all day. But now that I am older and just want to get away from the world, I can no longer tolerate being out in the Texas sun all day, so I cower inside during the heat of the day and work outside in the mornings and evenings. During siesta time in the information age, we surf rather than nap, most days. I try to keep the garlic watered and mulched (very important in Texas)and as weed free as I can. While I can't dote over and constantly preen the garlic, it's doing pretty good, anyway and I'm eager to see how well it harvests and cures out. Gotta go do some real work now, more later... Monday, May 12, 2003 - Our weather is a little weird this year and we have had late frosts as well as our first 100 degree days in the early May, followed by a beautifully cool and mostly cloudy Mothers Day weekend. Merridee and I celebrated the cool snap by hiking out to a remote place down by the creek and having a long leisurely picnic. The garlic is growing pretty well in general despite the lack of cooperation from the weather and we expect a very good crop if we can keep it irrigated and if the grasshoppers don't take it from us. There are lots of tiny grasshoppers all over the place, so we're in for a third straight plague of them this year. I will try to protect the garlic from them by building long hoophouses from windowscreen material. I'll let you know if it works. Friday, May 30, 2003 - Never before in my life have I seen a May like this one. The temperature shot up to over 100 degrees and stayed between 100 and 106 all month long, except for a couple of times cold fronts came through to drop us back into the 80's for a couple of days and then, back up over a hundred. In the space of 30 days, our lush green spring pastures have turned brown, our tank is low, it's like an oven outside and it's not even summer yet. I wonder what this summer is gonna be like out here on the threshold of desertification? In that same 30 days, the intense heat burned and killed the leaves of most our garlic and completely stopped its growth and bulb development. Fortunately, most of it was nearing harvest anyway so there were enough big bulbs to use as planting stock this fall but not many for sale. The later harvesting varieties I had covered with hoophouses made of windowscreen material survived the best as they were shaded. Monday, June 9, 2003 - Wow! What a crazy spring we are having here in the heart of Texas. The first week of June has given us our long awaited rains. The pastures are rapidly greening up again after May's heatwave seared everything golden brown. Our earthen cattle tank is filled to the base of the dam and has become a big shallow lake. The birds are playful again and the insects are plentiful and it's like a second spring with new wildflowers and grasses surging forth from the wet ground as if seeking refuge from the sodden soil. The swallows who nest on our front porch are starting on their second batch of young this year while the swifts who take over our chimney every summer are still trying to get their first batch of young ready to fly. Landlady Nature is up to her practical jokes again, giving us heavy rains right after she sears much of our crop with the hottest May on record. Girls just wanna have fun, I guess. Even so, she has left us with enough good planting stock to put in a large crop this fall - maybe she will be in a more generous mood next year. You always have to laugh at Mother Nature's jokes for the same reason you have to laugh at your boss's jokes, - you had better, she's still the landlady. Always check the Boutique Page for what is currently available. If you wish, you can E-Mail me or call me toll-free at (1-866-348-3049) to tell me what you want to order so that I can verify price and availability. These are the Kinds of Garlic We Had in Stock Last Year. We Will Almost Certainly Have These and More in 2003! Inchelium Red - rich medium artichoke. California Early - mellow medium artichoke. Chesnok Red - rich medium purple stripe - BEST ROASTING GARLIC! Persian Star - mellow medium flavor purple stripe - excellent roaster. German Stiffneck - a porcelain garlic with really big cloves and stores well. Rosewood - rich and very strong porcelain garlic that stores well - few but big cloves. Korean Red - rich and strong porcelain garlic. Mother of Pearl - very rich, yet mellow silverskin garlic that stores well. Killarney Red - very big and full flavored rocambole that will leave you wanting more. Youghigheny Purple - very large and rich full flavored rocambole garlic originally from northern Italy. China Rose - very large and very rich, yet mellow turban artichoke - great for warm winter gardens early harvesting. Romanian Red - rich and very strong porcelain with few but large cloves. Georgian Crystal - rich and mellow medium flavor porcelain that stores well. Summit Roja - big strong rocambole garlic that is very flavorful. Spanish Roja - strong and really good flavored rocambole - Ron England's favorite. Leningrad - rich and strong rocambole from the heart of Mother Russa. Siberian - beautiful very purple mellow garlic that stores well - great for warm winter area gardens. German Brown - a very rich rocambole. German Red - another very rich strong rocambole. Silverwhite - long storing silverskin with good flavor that just gets better with time. Music - rich medium-strong porcelain garlic with big cloves and stores well. Klamuth Red - rich yet mellow medium flavored - unusual for a rocambole garlic. Elephant garlic - we still have a little left - stores longer than the others. We expect to have several more new commitments and will have 30 or 40 varieties available by mid-September. We will add them to the Boutique page and also add information about them in the Varieties Page as they come in. We will also add them to the shopping cart program to make it easier to order them. I will try to keep the website updated often so that new varieties are posted immediately. Some Important Developments from 2002! We have a couple of new developments this year that will assure faster shipping and better storage of our garlics. We have built a walk-in cooler where the temp is always in the mid-50's (perhaps ideal for storing garlic for our purposes) and a shipping department that will accomodate more people so that orders can be filled and sent quicker. These improvements coupled with our shopping cart and credit card acceptance will assure an even higher level of customer satisfaction. We can't help but think it's going to be the best season yet and that we'll have the best and widest selection ever, especially since we keep hearing from more growers. Storage temperature is very important. By storing garlic bulbs in the mid-50's F range, it keeps well and for a longer time than at room temp. A big benefit is that once the garlic is brought up to room temp; that is, sent to a customer, it continues to store well for a few months, unlike store-bought garlic that sprouts almost immediately. We can't guarantee storage length, but the closer to 55 F and 60% humidity, the better and longer garlic will store, unless affected by some sort of pest or pathogen. Our new shipping department is air-conditioned so that the garlic stays cool as long as possible - it's better for the shippers, too. I will still select the varieties of garlic for all orders, but my helpers will pick, sack and pack most orders this year. This way our valued customers get their purchses sent to them faster and it helps the local economy here a little and the local economy can always stand a little help. Those who cherish the idea that garlic repels insects better cross grasshoppers off their list of such insects. Our grasshoppers eat the garlic to the ground and then go into the ground and eat out the bulbs. They come back up out of the ground looking for more garlic and race to beat their brethren to it. We managed to cover the garlic with row covers made from window screen material and they protected the garlic long enough for us to harvest most of it and avert real disaster. I must say, the farming business is a whole lot more interesting than you would think as you look at it from your car window or think about it from your living room in town. While some years have rewarded us with bumper crops, other years we've learned to survive a tornado and hail storm, a record-setting drought, hauling water, temps up to 116 F and now we're witnessing our second second grasshopper plague. Landlady Nature gets more interesting all the time. Kinda keeps me wondering what's next. Whatever it is, I shall accept it stoicly and humbly - as if there were some kind of choice. The last time I complained to Ms. Nature about how little rain she was giving us, she gave me water in the form of cantelope-size hailstones that wiped out the very crop I had hoped her rain would irrigate. I don't complain about the weather anymore, anyone who can conjure up lightning, tornados and such ain't nobody to argue with. There may not be a lot of movies and entertainment parlors this far out in the country, but the environment is a show in itself out here. Sometimes, just surviving is all the reward you get for your considerable effort and other years the bumper crops come easier than they should. You can laugh or cry, but you better not complain - the landlady don't like it and won't put up with it. We have a few grasshoppers every year, but every six or seven years, their numbers increase massively. During the year following the grasshopper invasion the land will be extra fertile because of the residual grasshopper manure. That's the time to plant the bumper crop - timing is everything. BIG NEWS! Finally, we are set up to accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard and American Express and soon, Discover) and we have installed a shopping cart to simplify buying and to automate the process. Even though our process appears to be automatic, it isn't. I still review each and every sale before the credit card is charged and usually write a personal comment on the receipt that gets sent with the package. We are not going to sacrifice personal service to automation, we just use it to makes things go better for everyone. Ordering should be easier than ever now with the on-line shopping cart. It will not only accept credit cards on line, but also fill out an order form for you to print and send if you prefer to pay by check and also would prepare a checklist if you prefer to give your credit card information over our toll-free phone line. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail or call me. Check the Boutique page for New Available Varieties as season goes on. Click Here to Go To the Boutique - Buy Small Assorted Sampler Packs of garlic & other things. Click Here to Go To the Varieties Page - Buy specific varieties of garlic by the pound. A look back at the Topsy-Turvy 2001 crop year. What an interesting year this has been! One is enough of years like 2001. It was a year of ecstastic highs (They wrote a big article about us in Texas Gardener Magazine.) and tragic lows with some growers experiencing bumper crops while others while others watched their garlic wither or drown. It was an incredible spring followed by 9-11, it was a year when some beautiful garlic turned bad in storage. Due to the article in Forbes, we got more orders than ever before but much of the garlic from one particular grower wilted prematurely and many orders had to be cancelled. All in all; however, it was a spectacular year that I won't be forgetting any time soon. So far, the 21st century is rather turbulent, but interesting in a fatal attraction sort of way. A look back at 2000 and a first look at this years crop as of March 22 2001. Wow! What a wild and crazy year 2000 was for us, especially when you remember that we lost our crop in April to a tornado/freak hail storm. While 2000 brought us a lot more unanticipated free publicity in the way of being recommended in Forbes Magazine and stories that mentioned us in lots of newspapers across the country, it also brought more than its share of adversity. 2000 was undoubtedly the hottest and driest year of my life - it hit 116 degrees several times - we were in the midst of the worst drought in our local history. Funny, the drought ended when we went to the Garlic is Life Symposium and Festival in Tulsa, OK in Oct. It started raining on us there and rained on us all the way back from Tulsa. Mother Nature always seems to have special treats in store for this part of Texas. We love the isolation of living in a remote creek bottom area with abundant wildlife (game, the hunters call it) and if severe weather is the rent Mama Earth charges us for living in her home, it's more than reasonable. We usually grow pretty good garlic in the fertile creekside soil, but if we have to miss a crop or two occasionally, it's still cheap rent. What the 1999 Crop was like and how the year ended. Wow! What a busy year 1999 was. First, we were favorably mentioned in a Food and Wine magazine article and then the New York Times mentioned us as did the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Contra Costa Times and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and several other publications, too. I feel very flattered.

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